Addictions of the Stones
by LOSE IT ALL
Summary: Callahan Stone, now an adult with children of his own, recalls his unusual childhood with parents addicted to having children.
1. Chapter 1

**Addictions of the Stones, Chapter 1**

Summary: Callahan Stone, now an adult with children of his own, recalls his unusual childhood with parents addicted to having children.

* * *

"Da-da," my toddler babbles as she takes hesitant steps towards me. I scoot up a little closer to her so that she will fall just into my arms. She does exactly what I thought she would and I scooped her up, hugging her tightly. She was tired, I could tell, so I decided our walking lesson was over for the time being. I put her in her crib and kiss her head before turning off her lamp.

My wife, Ivy, greets me with a big hug as I walked into our infant son's room. "He's just soo perfect, Cal," she squealed softly. We watched him in his crib. He let out the cutest sighs every once in awhile.

"We have the perfect family," I said, smiling tightly. We had been married for less than a year and had already had two kids. Kasen Dawn was technically our little "oopsie"—I invited Ivy to move in with us and one thing led to another and, well, I'm sure you get the picture.

Ivy came from a really small family. She had no siblings and had just one cousin who was eight years older than her. She got the bright idea that Kasen needed a sibling right away. We had recently inherited some money from my parents, who died within a few months of each other, and she convinced me that we needed to try for adoption.

This morning, the blue mini-van—the van I had grew to dread when I lived with my parents—arrived and the stiff social worker dropped off our son with little more than a bored "congratulations".

Ivy had been dead-set on choosing a baby, though I had personally preferred a toddler. Toddlers are much more fun, and you can actually do stuff with them. Babies just kind of lay there until they need a diaper changing or some food. But this whole adoption thing was Ivy's idea to begin with so I decided to go ahead and let her make all the decisions.

Then, just when I was getting okay with letting my free-spirited wife make the decisions, she demanded that I choose the name for the kid. The poor kid didn't have a name even as the social worker shoved him into Ivy's arms. She glared at me, impatiently tapping her foot. "I'm NOT putting my son in a crib nameless! That's just tacky."

"Jack."

"Okay, that's good. Middle name?"

"Umm…Michael?"

"No! Too common."

"Jensen?"

"Cal, I love your dad and we miss him but Jack Jensen? Come on."

"Samuel."

"Okay. I like it. Jack Samuel and Kasen Dawn," she smiled down at Jack.

"Oh, my carpool is here. Here, baby. I'll see you tonight," she said, handing me Jack and dashing off after a quick kiss.

Now I was exhausted. Ivy gave me a sideways look. "Yes, of course we have the perfect family. We have a healthy boy and a healthy girl," she said carefully, "but I don't think we're done yet."

"We've talked about this, Ivy. I don't want 12 kids. Two is the perfect number. You can keep track of their homework, of their schedules…It's easy."

"We'll talk about this later," she whispered, walking out of Jack's room.

I watched her go and then picked up our baby. I held him close, and then showed him around his room. We had thought long and hard how to pick out paint and carpet for both of the kids. We hadn't meant to do the stereotypical blue-pink thing but it just kind of ended up that way.

I put him back in his crib, then walked to the living room where Ivy was sitting. "Baby, you know how I am," I started, sitting next to her.

"Look, I know your issues with your parents and what they did. But I'm not them, and they're not us. I'm not saying we call today and get another kid. But I want to leave the options open. We're so young into our marriage and we already have two…I don't want to finalize it all after just two. Keep an open mind. We can do it," she said, taking my hand.

"I can't even name all my siblings without thinking about it," I said with a small smile. "It sounds so dumb when I verbalize all this. I just don't ever want Kasen or Jack to be in the position me and my siblings are in."

She squeezed my hand. "Never. Your parents…It's wrong. Was wrong. Is wrong…Whatever. Wrong."


	2. Chapter 2

**Addictions of the Stones, Chapter 2**

Summary: Callahan Stone, now an adult with children of his own, recalls his unusual childhood with parents addicted to having children.

* * *

Me, Kenley, Dean, Joryn, Brenda, Alvin, Brittany, Collins, Kennedy, Ellie, River, Jakob, Ryan. I rehearsed the names as I walked over to my stepmother's house. Kasen toddled hesitantly in front of me. I hadn't seen my stepmom since my dad's funeral, which meant that I had not even see Jakob and Ryan yet. My dad had called me so excited that he had knocked up his new wife so quickly, and then even more excited when he was pretty sure she was having twins. I then reminded him that he had just adopted River the day after my mom died.

"Yes, but the house felt so empty. There were only…" he had to pause and count the names, "seven people in the house after your mom died and we can have eight, so you know, we needed someone to fill that void, so we got River. But then Brenda and Alvin moved out right before we moved to the new house, so then your stepmother and I had to get the house filled back up. It's boring otherwise, especially since I retired," he had explained to me the day before he died, which was the day before the twins were born.

My very last conversation with my dad included me telling him that he and Demi, my stepmother, were absolutely nuts and that it was borderline neglectful what they were doing.

We finally reached the house and I stood outside, marveling at how far dad had come.

(Flashback—Callahan & Kenley are children; Dean is a toddler; their mother, Kerry, is pregnant with Joryn)

"I don't want to share a room with my sister!" I yelled indignantly, stomping my feet as my parents arranged the furniture in the tiny room. We had up and moved one morning, and they had decided on a tiny two-bedroom. The bedrooms were incredibly small, and my parents kept repeating about the sacrifices they were making by buying it, and by allowing Dean to sleep in their room rather than attempt to shove his crib in our bedroom. We didn't buy it, though, and were pretty convinced that mom and dad had already tried to fit the crib in the bedroom and it simply hadn't worked.

"Shut up, Callahan. It's fine, you only sleep in here," my dad had snapped, shoving my bed, with its rocket and stars blanket, into one corner as my mom pushed my sister's pink-flanked bed into the other.

"Yeah because there's no room for a stupid toy box or my toy car," I mumbled.

Sadly, those days were the most normal for our family. It was the last time there would not be a baby in our house for more than a couple of days.

Later, tired of making "sacrifices", dad added on to the house. Him and mom gained a huge master bedroom in the back, and a large bedroom was built on to the small one that Kenley and I shared. The room that had been my parents' became the nursery for whichever kid was a baby or toddler, and the back bedroom became the bedroom to the girls because, until after I moved out, there were a bunch of girls in a row. The boys were left to the tiny room that fit nothing other than the two beds.

I picked up Kasen and headed into the house. "Hi," a little boy greeted me. I was guessing it was River, since he was the only boy child who would be in the house on a Saturday, but I hadn't seen the kid since he was a toddler so I still wasn't sure.

"Hey, River," I said, smiling.

"Who are you?" He asked, reaching up to touch Kasen.

I winced. "Cal. Callahan? Your oldest brother," I told him, waiting for it to register.

"Oh. I don't remember you," he told me before sprinting off.

I watched him run upstairs and then looked around the house. This house was so massive compared to our old house in its original state. The house had served its purpose well with so many kids, but there were only so many people you could stuff in front of the TV so they'd get happy enough to do their homework.

The actual living room was pretty big, but they had split it into two rooms so the real living room that held the couches and TV was not that big an area. The pinball machine that dad had bought right after his original four moved out, as well as other random stuff like the chess table and easel, filled a brightly-colored room. Through that playroom was a little boys' room, one I was guessing was River's. On the first floor, I would eventually find out, was also the designated nursery, as we had had in the old house, plus Demi's room and a bathroom, and of course a kitchen.

Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bathroom.

I finally found Demi in the nursery, where she was hugging one of the twins.

"Callahan!" She greeted me, hugging me and smiling at Kasen. Demi had always been nice enough, but gullible and young, and I knew my dad had gotten to her with his 'have to have a baby around' nonsense.

"Hey, Demi. How's the kids?" I asked, putting Kasen down.

"They're okay. They're still kind of dealing with Jensen's death, you know. They'll start crying occasionally. But I mean, it's been like three days so they should be over it soon. These two little rascals are going to be joined by someone new soon," she told me, putting the kid down. I couldn't believe they were toddlers already.

"Demi, really? You can't. There's already eight people here," I pointed out.

"Don't be silly. I haven't called yet. You know they won't let you call if there's eight. But Brittany is moving out today at six. She doesn't know it yet, of course, but I'm sure she'll be excited. If you ask me, she is a little too moody," Demi said. "Want me to take you on a tour of the upstairs? This house is just beautiful, I'm so glad your dad bought it for us before he—you know. He told me exactly how to lay it out, too," she said.

I followed her upstairs. "Toddlers and babies never go upstairs, so if I ever have more than two babies or toddlers I can't get another kid yet, your dad says. Because you can't put two together unless they're twins, and there's only two rooms downstairs. So after Brittany leaves, River is going upstairs and this will be his room," she explained, pointing out the first room that, for now, was obviously a girl's room. This is where Kennedy sleeps now. It was too small for a double bed, but your daddy tried. Then this room is where Brittany sleeps now, see? Because she's the oldest? But now Kennedy will sleep in here. Then this is where those other two girls sleep…Ellie and Collins. I cannot wait for Kennedy and Collins to grow up in a couple of days because then I'll be able to adopt two babies really quick!" Demi hardly took a breath as she showed me the three rooms. I let her babble on without saying anything, but enough was enough.

"We need to talk. Demi, can you even take care of all these kids? You went from having no kids to having seven in, like, six days," I said slowly.

"Oh, sure. The teens help with the twins. I can get them to feed them and potty train them, and put them in and out of their cribs. I'm the only one that can teach them to walk and talk but you know, that's not too bad with the girls helping with everything else."

"Okay, but Brittany is leaving today. Kennedy and Collins are leaving in a few days and have jobs right now so they can't help much anyways. Ellie's going to be a teen soon but then you have one teen helping with all these babies you think you need."

"Callahan, why are you being so negative? Your dad told me you were like this," she said, frowning, "so negative about his rules for children. Children have to fill the home. We have to save the kids…"

She trailed off as I remembered my dad giving the same spiel to my mother so many years before…

(Flashback—Callahan/Kenley are children, Dean is a toddler, Joryn is a newborn)

"Baby, can't you just imagine this house being so fun with more kids?" Dad had asked mom, smiling at her.

Mom took pregnancies roughly. In fact, after Joryn, of all the kids only Ellie was their biological kid. So when he spoke of having more kids, she absolutely panicked.

"No. Four is enough!" She had said immediately, shaking her head. "I will not spend three days puking up the food I manage to force down my throat, only to be hungry 3 hours later. And have to wake up during the night to eat…That was certainly the funnest part!"

"No, baby, we can adopt. It's just a phone call, and we have the funds for it!" Mom still balked at the idea, and it wasn't until Joryn was a child that they made the decision to adopt. Dad just kept moping around, so mom gave him the okay and he made the call.

The blue mini-van started making its frequent visits the next morning. When us four got home from school, there was a toddler in the crib dad had left in the bedroom.

"Meet your sister, Brenda!" When we grimaced at the name, they explained that you only got to name an adopted baby, not a toddler or child.

It was all downhill from there.


End file.
